Wisdom Is In the Details

I rarely mention Israel. Not just because the country has suffered enough already. Not just because the situation is not interesting. But mostly because Israel is such a special case that it is hard to extract generalities from it. Also its fate is mostly controlled by external factors. However, something important happened there recently: not just the commemoration of the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis, but how deputy chief of staff Yair Golan, the second in command of the Israeli army chose to kick it off by comparing today’s Israel with Nazi Germany.

I salute the following comment, which has long been pretty much at the core of my own philosophy, for decades. IDF Major General Yair Golan, reading from a prepared text:

“The Holocaust in my eyes must bring us to deep contemplation of the nature of man, even when that man is myself. The Holocaust must bring us to deep contemplation on the matter of the responsibility of leadership, on the matter of the quality of a society… Shoah [Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis] must impel us here and now to reflect fundamentally on how here and now we take care of the stranger, the widow and the orphan.”

Morality, like logic, can be anything. This being said, the IDF has not been too immoral yet…

Yair Gollan went all out in warning Israel: “If there’s anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is identifying some horrifying processes that took place in Europe in general and in particularly Germany up to 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and finding evidence of their repetition here in our society today in 2016. It is easier and simpler to hate a person. It is easy and simple to arouse fear, to scare-monger. It is easy to become dehumanized, callous, sanctimonious.”

90 years ago brings us back to 1926. But actually, Nietzsche was denouncing strident tribal anti-Judaism in Germany in the 1880s. Inspection of the historical record shows that state legislated anti-Judaism originated in Prussia in the eighteenth century. As a British ally against France, anti-Judaism thus became something that Great Britain condoned, and even outright supported. After the French were defeated in 1815 CE, Anti-Judaism became the law in German-speaking land (Jews could not be doctors and lawyers, etc.)

Yair Golan is a proven hawk in matter of defense, although he started the practice of treating Syrians wounded in the Syrian civil war in Israeli hospitals. Like all the leadership of the Israeli army and the Mossad (Israel CIA, complete with assassinations in what became also the French way, and also, more recently, learning from example, the US way… That the Jews and French decided that to become way nastier, in some circumstances, was more moral, after their experiences with Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini should surprise no one…), Golan sees the present situation as an opportunity to make a real peace with the Palestinians. (An assessment that neither the Likud, Hamas or Hezbollah share, as it would undermine their reasons for being…)

How did the whole anti-Jewish madness start? It was a long story, started in Pagan Rome. It should be its own essay. The evolution of a lucrative madness always presents many twists and turns…

The worst part of anti-Judaism is not that it happened, but that, sometimes, and for centuries, it did not exist, at all. This means that something terrible, only founded on the admittedly very satisfying urge to hate somebody, or an entire category of people, can be reborn after centuries of eradication. In other words, the rebirth of fanatical anti-Judaism from its ashes show that cannibalism and slavery as an industry could well reappear in the future. Let alone strict laws enforcing state sexism, etc.

Speaking of evil reborn, Wall Street has raised already $23 million for Clinton in this election cycle. At least $4.3 million from Wall Street has gone directly into Clinton’s presidential campaign, and another $18.7 million has gone to the super PAC backing her, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

Wall Street is a vast army, and its morality is greed. It’s not about orphans.

One third of financial executives’ donations went to Clinton in 2015 and the first quarter of 2016. Now Wall Street donors to (ex) Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have thrown their weight behind Clinton. Trump received less than 1% of Wall Street donation, and the best financed “candidate” until now has been that of rich Republican donors, AGAINST Trump. (This means that the hysteria against Trump is financed by bedfellows who want to devour each other.)

So how did one get to “The Holocaust”? First “The” Holocaust was part of a much more general, and older pattern: Auschwitz was initially created for Poles, for exterminating Poles, not Jews (although no doubt they were thinking about Jews). And that, in turn was part of a program of extermination of Poland which was at least two centuries old, and itself motivated by greed and world domination: hence the deliberate attack on the world on August 1, 1914.

All this could develop because, all too few saw it for what it was: although Nietzsche condemned the system of thought which would come to be called “Nazism” a generation later, his voice was lonely. Let me notice in passing that the Will To Extermination is the ultimate expression of the Will To Power.

Thus Yair Golan is right: One “must bring us to deep contemplation of the nature of man, even when that man is myself. The Holocaust must bring us to deep contemplation on the matter of the responsibility of leadership, on the matter of the quality of a society.”

After World War Two, the Germans, that is, the German intellectual leadership denied responsibility, as usual. That was an egregious lie. Yet, anxious to fend off Stalin, the Western democracies acquiesced to this fiction. In truth, most of what came to be known as Nazism was the significant essence of (a very significant part of) German society, before Adolf Hitler was even in diapers.

Today’s Israel is in not in such situation, by a very long shot. However, one could imagine that it could well get there if the Jewish “Orthodox” fanatics keep growing in power: they are the ones who had brought the mood conducive to first, and completely pointless Judean War of 66 CE (Greeks had sacrificed birds in front of a synagogue). (The Orthodox Jews escape the military draft, thus don’t intersect with the IDF!)

By, the “leadership” one should not just understand elected politicians. “Leadership” does not mean just elected puppets such as Obama, or the Supreme Court and their meager contributions to the debate. It means mostly the Main Stream Media and the intellectual leadership: those who are viewed as wise, from Paul Krugman to the likes of Bill Gates, or popular authors.

To change minds, we have to change moods and the first mood to change is attention to significant details.

The easier way to destruction of an evil go through its explanation, and that starts with its contemplation. Lack of contemplation gives diabolization an election.

Wisdom is in the details. It may make it sometimes a bit too diabolical, but the ways of goodness are mysterious.

31 Responses to “Wisdom Is In the Details”

Hi Patrice, I am an avid reader of your blog and this is the first time I am writing to you, if not only because the Jewish role in modern history is almost as important as the catholic one, but that is for another time.

This link here shows some truths behind what happened in WWII, and I think it is important to showcase some parts of the Jewish community for what they are, freaking plutocrats! If you could give a glimpse at the paper and give some feedback It would be much appreciated.

Welcome Nicolas. Thanks for the avidity! 😉 Sorry I did not let your comment through earlier, now they should go direct. I have been busy with real life events charged with importance and urgency… I will comment more later…

In the USA, there is a number of odious plutocrats of the “Jewish” subcategory. They exude lies, using supposed “anti-Semitism” as something they leverage…

Many control the Main Stream Media, so they inflict a severe mood on the whole population. They are often anti-French, because, as plutocrats, they fear the sans culottes… and they harbor a secret wound from 1939. Indeed, to shut them down, it’s enough to point out that their predecessors, in 1939, did… NOTHING, against Nazism. France declared war to Hitler. Prominent US Jews collaborated with him (Hannah Arendt covered the German chapter of this, and was hated for it…)…until Hitler declared war to the USA, December 11, 1941…

Dear Patrice, i need to repeat my comment i commented in the past to you. It is easy and not very correct to judge acts of people in thes past based on the todays knowledge. To my opinion until 1941 no one in the world could even imagine what kind of monsterous regime rised in the very middle of Europe. As contrary to it, to some people it was clear what kind of monster Stalin was. So to judge Jews, Americans, or anybody else, who showed great impotence against such an incomprehensible evil, that even 70 year after there is not even one worthy explanation to how could the most educated nation in the world, in middle of 20 century do what they have done, is intellectually not very honest. I could ask in the same way, why at 1936 when Hitler showed already his mass murdering tendencies, and the French still could easily remove him from his position, why the French army let the German military forces to enter the Rhineland?. This act clearly violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and still the French had done nothing. At 1939 it was already to late after Munich, where Chamberlain betrayed the human race.
If to learn lesson from the past, do not trust anybody with murderous intentions, and also not those who look for short-sighted benefits, hoping things will get better somehow. Not they will not. It is clear who are today the representants of absolute evil and again the world leaders are to preoccupied with short term problems to do anything against it.

France needed to make sure the alliance of Britain with Hitler of 1935 would break. Attacking Germany in 1936 would have been viewed in the UK as an act of aggression. In 1936, the pro-Nazi British king was still king.

The French did all they could against Hitler, even extremely hostile relations with… Roosevelt which they paid for heavily later, starting in 1939.
It’s not that the UK and the US did not see, they COLLABORATED with the Nazis (until January 1939 for the Brits… Through the war for some immensely powerful pro-Nazi organizations in the US… Like IBM, or the head of the future CIA, then only second in command of the OSS…)

Retrospectively, the great French error was not to engage the regular army and air force in Spain, starting in 1936. The government of PM Leon Blum said first it was going in, but then the UK and US opposed that stridently.

Leon Blum was a Jew later imprisoned by the Nazis. Blum was nearly assassinated by the Nazis in May 1945, before being saved by a Wehrmacht officer in Austria, who intervened against the SS at gun point. So many people knew… Including Begin who, under British guidance, refused to exchange a million Jews for 10,000 trucks…

Dear Patrice, If to add to your highly educative essay, I would like to comment to those who dogmatically oppose anything that Israel and Jews represent in this world, and to those who do all what is in their capacity to illegitimate existence of Israel as a Jewish state. I am less speaking about the Muslim world, whose hatred to Jews is expression of their frustration from failure of most of the Muslim states to create a modern statehood, while Israel, a tinny state, surrounded by animosity, succeeded to thrive and as such it became a red rag, remaining to the Muslim world, that something very basic vent wrong in their societies, and faith. Understandable the natural response of these Muslims is animosity to Israel and Jews instead of self-examination, which would force them to examine and abandon the very basics of their societies, the despotic repression of women and minorities. Just to remain you, the Afghan jihad against the Communistic take over started when the communistic regime tried to impose education on Afghan girls. So all their animosity even if opposing it i can explain and understand.

But not so the European lefty groups (like the British academics who officially decided to boycott the Israeli academy). These groups ideologically oppose legitimacy of a Jewish state, using an absurd claim of racism and historical illegitimacy, and claim that Israel was forced on the world by the European colonialist powers after WWI. This claim is absurd, since almost every political sovereignty in today’s world was forced on the world by some kind of bloody historical event sometime in the history. Also most of the sovereign states in the world today are result of decolonization after WWII. What are all the African states, and most of the Asians, including India or Pakistan, if not result of European colonialism. And yet, no one claims that these states are not legitimate entities. More than that, any statehood, based on identity defined by ethnics, is not based on racism, but on cultural features. (Israelis who lived in different part of world for two thousand years are racially very different from each other. It seems even if Jews who lived in closed societies of Ghettos, intercourse with the surrounding population was rather the custom, than the exception.) If you ask me what is the main glue of the Jewish nation all over the world, i would say it is its historical and mythological story. And i am not speaking only about old testament but also the recent history, and above all the Holocaust. This is why those who try to illegitimate the Jewish sovereignty try either to deny the Holocaust or to minimize the importance of the event.

I generally agree with you, with the caveat that genuine friends of Israel, supporting its legitimacy, right to existence and safety (all universally recognized except by minority organizations), are perfectly entitled, indeed under an obligation to, expose and oppose the Israeli leadership’s current suicidal policies. Tainting such opinions with knee-jerk accusations of Anti-semitism is not only unfair, it is counter-productive. (I acknowledge of course the very real and unforgivable Anti-semitism of self-proclaimed progressives who are nothing of the sort).

Just one observation about linking Muslim backwardness and irredentism with the rejection of schooling for girls. There is such a rejection, and it can be murderous, as many sad examples show. But I do not see it as an intrinsic part of (even traditional) Muslim society.

I personally met with village elders in the South FATA (“tribal areas’) of Pakistan, aka “OBL country”. They most forcefully stressed they needed and wanted schooling for girls. There may be such an ingrained rejection in a tiny part of the tradition-minded population, but overall, the resentment against schooling for girls is IMHO the result of its association with foreign occupation, which actually EMPOWERS that kind of (non-) thinking. Left to itself, a backward society will gradually evolve; prodded to do so at gunpoint, it will retreat in swathes to its backward fundamentals, as can be seen now in Pakistan.

I think Patrice is totally pro-girls, except for Hillary Clinton. Most young progressive American women are pro-Sanders, like most of the youth.
Muslim women are all over the map. In the US, they often drink in the closet

Dear Dominique, i do agree with you as to opposition to Nataniahu, but mainly in the issue of political environment of hate and mistrust he creates. But as to the real politics, probably Israel has no option for different policy towards Arab neighbor countries and the Palestinians. No Arab country or its people excepts existance of a non Muslim, Jewish state in the Areas they see as Muslim lands. On the other hand no israeli, even not the most lefty is ready to trust the Jewish soverenity into Muslim hands. Would you like to live under any of many active Muslim leaders?
As to Muslim education of women, it is better to check the data, than trying to create theories based on personal experience. For example in Pakistan 55% of the women are iliterate, which is better than in Afghanistan with 75% illiteracy. In Egypt the figure is by the way ,35% illiteracy of women. The man in all these countries are doing at least 50% better. Meaning the illiteracy of man is 18% in Egypt, 48% in Afghanistan and 30% in Pakistan. Today, as most of the jews in Europe were murdered, the antisemitism in Europe is mainly of Muslim population, and some lefties, who were marginalized in Europe lately.

The Qur’an as ordered by Caliph Uthman was atrociously sexist, and in total violation of Muhammad’s spirit. This was what Aischa, Mahomet’s child-bride, thought, and she went to war against it. The least we can do, is the same.

I think that criticizing any country is a mark of love for said country.
In the case of Israel, I can see why Likud does what it does. I understand it. I am even ambivalent about it. I can see why people jump and scream at the invasion by settlements. Yet, well… Certainly OK with, say, the Golan Heights. (Syria should not have attacked through it in ’73, to say the least.)

Ultimately, the case of Israel is completely unique. 2,000 of weirdness.

I do think that the Palestinians should be made to understand collaborating (carefully chosen word) with Israel is their best hope. But of course, many in Israel know this, and don’t want it.

Opinions with labels such as ‘hawk’ don’t characterize a person. Actions do. Israel in particular has a very clean record, always though drawing the line between ‘humane’ and ‘suicidal’. Being humane is ok. Being suicidal has the law of evolution against yoy

That said, Patrice I am awaiting some king of article on the French labor law reform. This is a really amazing story and I wonder on the dynamics in France. Who supports it? who does not(Besides the public)?

The French labor reform was modified three times in three months, and finally passed en force. It’s a step or tweo in the right direction, but it has a long way to go. Meanwhile Macri, the pluto Argentinian president, who just boosted the poverty rate there up to 34.5% since his election in December, has agreed to impose a decree of no firing for big companies in the next 3 months (!!!!)

Suicide may well be evolutionary sanctioned… French labor reform is strongly needed ASAP.

I am kind of surprised at your views on this, as it seems to contradict all your other positions: First, this is a hugely unpopular reform, so what about democracy? Second, it does benefit plutocracy. Third, it is kind of a breach of contract and actually detrimental to the country in my view: When it comes to recruiting talented, highly skilled people, you can either a) profitably hire them for less than what they would make elsewhere, but offer them other things, such as job security in return, or b) offer them attractive pay with no job security. If strategy b) is adopted, then, i) it costs the company MORE money to get highly skilled personnel, ii) this personnel adopts a ‘grab the money and run’ philosophy, and be constantly alert for opportunities to leave and make more money, as they know that they have a fixed time frame to make as much as they can before they are no longer employable. As a result they will tend to focus on short-term success and less likely to invest their time and effort on long-term projects that may not end by the time they move on to the next job. While adopting either a) OR b) is a valid strategy and doing so is a government’s right for newcomers to the job market, changing the rules of the games for people already working is effectively, morally, a breach of contract, as existing workers can rightly claim that “If I had known that you were going to change the rules, I would have never accepted your lower paying, supposedly more secure job and have adopted the ‘grab the money and run’ strategy and sought employment outside France.

What ‘reform’are we talking about here? The thing in France? They keep on changing it. The government passed it through the assembly by force, but now it has to go to Senate, no?

Could still change

Labor laws in France are a well known disaster. Denmark has 4% unemployment with fire at will laws, and it’s more socialist than France. Patrice talked many times about Denmark, long ago, so she didn’t change her position

As I understand it’s final now. It’s fine to have fire at will laws, as the US has. It’s changing the goalposts that is the problem. Fire at will countries have typically higher pay than more protectonist ones. I think I explained the reasoning very clearly.

Dear Tom: The details are rather unimportant. France has nearly four times the unemployment rate of Switzerland (or Denmark, as Gmax said). Employment is like money in one sense: it can be monopolized. In France many categories monopolize employment. In the USA, there are less than 18 million civil servants, France six millions. If the USA had as many civil servants, it would have thirty millions. And that’s just for starters. It’s nearly impossible to get a company started, but the taxes start right away, before any profits. And so on.

That the reform is “hugely unpopular” is an appearance. There are professional protest groups in France: see “Nuit Debout”. Nuit Debout shut down philosopher academician Finkielkraut, in a way that shows these clowns are just intellectual brutish fascists.

In truth, the more reforms are rejected, the worse the shock is going to be, when reform WILL have to happen. As happened in several European countries already.

The situation at this point is that the two leading candidates in the polls, Le Pen and Juppe’ are coming with hard core “liberal” (Euro sense) programs. Hollande, like the now destitute Brazilian president, claimed he could give what he could not. When he realized he could do otherwise, he took his liberal turn, but too late, and, especially, without a mandate for it. Juppe’ and Le Pen are coming with a “liberal” shock…

Thanks for the partial answer. I am not sure I understand though: Why are civil servants (fonctionaires) relevant? They cannot be fired if I understand correctly, even with the new law.
With regard to starting a company, Israel is a great example with a 5 year tax exemption for startups. Which shows that ‘out of the box’ thinking is more effective than cookbook recipes , e.g. (reduce wages and ease layoffs). I have already explained my moral problem not with layoffs per se, but with changing the goalposts, which I consider racist, as certain categories are more equal than others. Imagine for instance that one buys a football club like the OM Marseille or PSZ with the payers and coaches having 5-year contracts, then state intervening to effectively change the contracts. This could not happen because UEFA would have huge sanctions against such clubs and they would lose the right to take part in european competitions. Even worse, imagine that a smart somewhat rogue businessman make sthe following offer to the world’s best players: A 5-year contract paying 100K the first year, 1M the second, 10M the 3r, 100M the 4th and 1bn the 5th year. Who would not come? Then , after the 1st year and after the team has won the Champions League, bringing in large profits, government intervenes to say ‘never mind the contract, wou can fire them at will’..

As for popularity, this was a major focus of my question. I read somewhere that polls show some 75% being against the reform. So Le Pen supports the reform or rejects it as ‘too light’? I would imagine she would argue that ‘by not putting France first and because of the evil EU and globalization, the french people will see reduced incomes’ and so on. I am not sure I remember what Hollande promised, but like you said he did not have a mandate to do this.

Israel is the burning bush. The burning bush of all hot issues. Approach at own risk. Good post. Golan is right.
Sanders beat Clinton again. It seems people are getting it, that’s voting for Clinton is voting for trump and Wall Street

To Tom:
In France, there are professional protesters and breakers (“casseurs”). The more the protests, the more votes the far right will get next year.
Hollande lied to get elected, a bit like Dilma Roussef, or the clown Maduro in Venezuela.
So now Hollande is trying to do what Sarko should have done. Voters are not amused.

The papers to fill up to create a company in France, are hopeless relative to what they are in Switzerland or Britain. And taxes precede profits. Result? 3% unemployment in Suisse (as in Denmark), 5% in the UK (as in Germany), 11% in France.

In a somewhat related situation, many EU countries would vote for EUxit at this point, if asked. Out of stupidity and diverse manipulations. And maybe it will end with tanks. The only important thing, is that the Franco-German alliance hold.

Dear Patrice,
I understand and fully agree with your point on unproductive bureaucracy in starting a business as well as ‘taxes before profits’, but I doubt the protests are about lifting bureaucratic obstacles or tax changes. If I understand correctly the protests are about making layoffs easier, or actualy using the threat of a layoff to change existing contracts (if you insist on getting paid what your contract says and not less, you are fired). This is very different than cutting red tape in starting a business or lifting counterproductive tax burdens or even helping companies stay afloat and prosper(thus contributing to employment and governent income). As for casseurs, I understand that these are actually detrimental to the opposition to the measures and either deliberate actions to slander the opposition or else the work of people with no brain, or perhaps a combination of both. Anyway, if you have insight I’d appreciate to know what the position of the various parties in it are: Hollande’s party is probably divided, with the majority supporting. The right wing is probably for it, but would understandably want the PS to take the blame. The left is probably against, LePen I have no idea, I’d imagine she’d be against.

What happens is that there is no plan. It’s a sum over histories directed process like Quantum Mechanics, except the best energy process is not found. There is a need for tremendous reforms, and that means they will hurt. So instead they made little reforms here and there. When they came out finally with a big reform, the “Loi Travail”, opposition to it mangled it.

It does not help that the “Nuit Debout” style opposition is, first, in opposition to any intellectual capital… Just like, for decades, we heard the monstrosity that “Islamophobia is racism”, now we hear that a three star (I gave myself more, hahaha) philosopher like Finkielkraut has no right to walk the streets and be engaged. It was like this only under Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini. I have seen it justified by pseudo-thinkers on TV:”He should not have been there”.

The problem is that ideas are the weapons and the tools, and the likes of “Nuit Debout” has neither. Same when they tried to put the robotic “portiques” (gates) along roads to make trucks pay for the destruction they cause to the roads. (The US had, forever, a similar, but manual system to the same effect, using the interstates.) Other European countries implemented the system… So now German trucks take French “freeways” (which are not free, but private interstates).

As the mess builds up, everybody can see strong solutions are needed. The National Front blocked Black M, a rapper, to sing in Verdun. The singer was outraged: didn’t his grandfather fight in World War One? Yes, little one. However, little one, you used a well known Wahhabist insult to qualify all the French, and insult worth of the death penalty in Wahhabism. So, little one, you wanted to celebrate Verdun, by augmenting the hatred against French secularism. So you needed to be taught, little one. And you were taught, by the National Front.

The idiot socialist woman who is minister of culture called the controversy “nauseabonde” (sickening), hopefully bringing immediately 5 million votes to the National Front… What’s sickening is that the Pope can come and attack laicity (secularism) in France, and the government does not react to this implicit alliance with the fanatics. The gov should have recalled the ambassador to the Vatican (which was created as a state by Charlemagne, no less)…

What’s going on is that morons are in charge of a difficult situation. And not just in government, but also in media… and it’s of course deliberate (their pay masters are the same)…

Thanks Patrice,
very interesting details. So if I understand correctly, no side, Hollande/Macron, the right, the left, the FN etc has a reasonable plan to deal with the problems of the economy. (in quantum mechanics classical histories are coherent, while nonclassical decohere and effectively sum to 0 in the classical domain, so it actually gets a coherent answer, unlike economics:) ) Nuit debut is a probably popular reaction to the reform of the Loi du Travail, but effectively hijacked by clueless casseurs, similar to how opposition to the likes of Assad and Quaddafi was hijacked by islamic militants. If I get your point casseurs adopt the idiotic leftist/fascist mode of thought that “all that do not agree 100% with us do not have the right to speak/do not deserve to live etc”, rather than engage them in dialogue and expose what idiots/puppets etc they are. This is akin in stupidity to banning movies like “the Godfather”.
I had no idea about the Black M story, and probably this is far from the labor reform. I assume the insult referred to was what I looked up “la France n’est qu’un pays de “kouffar”(mécréants)” (France is a country of infidels). Not sure if Black M is a french citizen (I assume he is) and I assume he is moslem. If this was the case probably this would sit badly pretty much everywhere (definitely in the US where even “french fries” were once problematic and people opposing such a concert would be considered quite mainstream).

There seems to be a consensus about what to do with the economy. Namely Schroderize it (Germanify), but without the defects of what happened in Germany. But then, of course, there is the problem of plutocratic tax cheating (one trillion Euros a year according to the EC!!!!! Itslef!). Here the point man should be Pierre Mosocovici, a youngish French Socialist, long competitor to PM Vals. Moscovici is EC commissioner in finance. You would expect him to threaten to strike Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland and Great Britain with sanctions. Instead, mysteriously, he is keeping a low profile. Did somebody threaten him privately????

It’s a major problem for France. France is basically exactly like the USA especially in the matter of technology-defense. That means France needs a tax base, but France cannot have it, because of EU and global tax cheating. This being said, it’s hard for France to crack down. Easy does it. For Switzerland, France has been joined by Germany and Italy… Now what’s needed is to crack down on the others, inside the EU. That means persuade the Germans. Both France and Germany have elections next year. Germany is busy with the refugees, and France has put Merkel in charge… While France is busy with other things, like war in half a dozen countries…

If I understand correctly, even the Scroederized Germany labor law is nothing like the french reform, which seems to give mafia powers to CEOs and managers. Tax cheating is, like you said a major problem and will not go away with reforms in the labor laws to give even more power to cheaters…

Well, right now the cost of average worker in France is 36 Euros, Germany, 34 Euros, per hour. Germany is quickly catching up with France, after political decisions by Merkel to do so (obviously in accord with the French).

The tax cheating problem is on hold right now, because of Brexit, Britain being the world’s number 2 cheater. In theory Luxembourg is supposed to follow Switzerland, and crack down on the tax thievery (cheating is too mild a term)… by next year (the Swiss crack down is doubled, and half of it is deployed already) After that come the hard bits: Ireland, Netherlands, Britain…

Right now, the population is exasperated by the impotence of the government in France to re-establish order, while fighting terrorism. The police is demonstrating, massively, all over France. A police car was deliberately attacked and set afire, with plenty of videos available, about these attempted homicides.